Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Light in the Dark

Last week saw a sad anniversary in the Ukraine.
It’s eighty years since the beginning of the Holodomor, literally meaning
‘extermination by hunger’, a Stalin-made catastrophe that is thought to have
been responsible for the death of up to seven million people in the years 1932
and 1933.

It marks the first great moral nadir of communism. It
was a period of forced requisitions, a period when corn, even seed corn, was
taken by the thugs of the NKVD, the state security apparatus, and other
politically-inspired gangsters. It was a period when food was marked ‘for
export’ while men, women and children dropped dead in the streets. For
some it is comparable to the Holocaust. While that is probably a step too
far, in that there was no discernible racial motive involved, it shows a
comparable callousness.

This tragedy is still not widely known outside the Ukraine.
The reason for this is simple enough: it was hushed up at the time by Western
journalists who were little better than the stooges and dupes of Stalin.
The greatest stooge of all was Walter Duranty of the New York Times, who
received a Pulitzer Prize for the ‘honesty’ of his reporting from the USSR, which
might be a good indication of the true value of this benighted award.

To the cowards and wretches like Duranty there is one
honourable exception – Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist and former aid to David
Lloyd George, whose reporting of the famine had him banned from the USSR.
He was later murdered in Mongolia,
aged only twenty-nine, in circumstances that have never been fully explained.

It was only after the Ukraine achieved its independence
that the Holodomor was accorded official recognition after years of enforced
silence. Viktor Yuschenko, the former president, initiated a Holodomor
Remembrance Day in 2006, marked every 25 November. There is now a candle
shaped memorial in Kiev, the capital, and a HolodomorMuseum.

Things change. Yuschenko and the Orange Revolution
are, like the Holodomor itself, in the past. Viktor Yanukovich, the
current president, started to backtrack almost as soon as he got into
office. The whole thing has been diluted, with the terror hunger now
officially viewed as “a common tragedy of the Soviet people.” There is
politics here, of course; there is always politics, even in death. The
former president pursued a distinctly nationalist and anti-Russian line.
Yanukovich, in contrast, is closer to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president,
and Putin is close to the ghost of Stalin.

The commemorations went ahead anyway, even with the absence
of state support. People were able to taste dishes made out of tree bark
or leaves, something the desperate took to in the days of famine, a forlorn
attempt to assuage hunger and cheat death. The occasion was also marked
by various symbolic events like the “uncelebrated weddings” and the “unrealised
talents”, a commemoration of loss.

Up to 2000 people gathered at the HolodomorMuseum,
observing a moment’s silence at 4pm precisely in memory of the dead.
Across the Ukraine
lit candles were placed in windows, little stars of light flickering into
history’s great darkness.

It is sad to note that Russia having thrown of the yoke of communism has now become a gangster state. I incessantly moan about the state of democracy in the West but for the poor benighted Russian and other peoples of the former USSR only for a brief period have they tasted anything like we have. Perhaps I should count my blessing and stop whining so much but then I look at the EU and think if things go on the way they are we will soon have have an SSR of our own the EUSSR. I also look at our parliamentary system and think how it has gone from being representative democracy to representative dictatorship and how before it is too late the people must take government away from politicians, political parties and vested interest and replace them with those that will truly govern according to their wishes.

Antisthenes, let me recommend a book to you, an unfinished novel, on the assumption that you have not already read it. It's Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman, a writer of stunning brilliance. He touches on the very thing you are alluding to here, Russia's 'democratic deficit'. You will find my own assessment here. http://anatheimp.blogspot.com/2011/10/tears-flow.html

Our own democratic tradition is dying but these things are always relative.

Stunning! At least they have memory day and museum. Wonder when China can do something like that.Recently, I heard read part of a book that just published in hongkong - "myth of blood" (only chinese version). i can only read part of it because it is too horrible to go through the whole thing. it is about a massacre happened during cultural revolution of china. soon i "discovered" another even more horrible massacre happened about the same time in another province. i wrote an article "oblivion in chinese style". my main point of this writing is, not only the number of death is stunning, but also the way how people died - extremely barbarism; what kind of people participated - most of them ordinary people (in countryside); and the last, how both chinese people and government chose to forget about it so completely!what most people (outsiders or younger generation of chinese people, include me) know about cultural revolution is probably red guard beat most of intellectuals, or even tortured or killed some of them, but what happened, especially in countryside was way beyond this. as matter of fact, based what i read both from the book ("myth of blood") and online, it was the most unspeakable historical event in human history. no double chinese people have to forget!

I know, Yun Yi. If the Holodomor was the first moral nadir of communism what happened during the so-called Great Leap Forward was the greatest. China will only ever come to terms with its past when the face of Mao no longer looks down on Tiananmen Square.

About Me

Hi, I'm Ana! History is my passion -and that is not too strong a word - but I also enjoy politics, philosophy, art, literature and travel. In addition I have a deep interest in witchcraft, in all of the ancient arts. Apart from that I'm a keen sportswoman. I play lacrosse and tennis, but I love riding most of all. I have my own horse, Annette.